Retrogression
by Tastes of Strawberries
Summary: sweeney todd, revivalverse A patient goes through a second childhood, a doctor remembers hers.
1. taste

**Author's Note:** As there isn't much explained about the doctor, I've taken a lot of liberties with her past. I've also taken liberties with Toby's state in the asylum.

It's Thursday and he won't eat. It's the first time he's ever refused food. She tries to get him to have just a little, but he pushes her hand away. The spoon she's holding tips over and some of his breakfast falls in her lap, but she ignores it. She tries again, a little more forcefully this time, but he still refuses the meal. Angered, she tells him that if he won't eat, he can starve. She leaves the cell feeling more accomplished than she should. It was unprofessional of her to lose her temper, but the boy should know his place.

(It's Monday and it's sunny, and she's swinging her legs and sitting on the fence, and a man is walking up the street, limping. As he approaches she can see a gash in his leg from his ankle to about halfway up his calf. She waves, and he waves back but presses on. She calls to him and he stops. She jumps off the fence and runs over to him. He needs medical attention, she says. She's got a needle and thread upstairs-- won't he wait a moment?)


	2. sight

It's Friday and when she comes to check on him, his eyes are closed, but he isn't sleeping. She never thought he was sleeping, anyway-- his eyelids are all scrunched together in a way that suggests it's taking him a great deal of effort to keep them so tight. She touches his shoulder to alert him of her presence. He might have heard her walk in, but that's unlikely. She's seen patients get like this before. Most of the time, the screams inside their heads are louder than the sound of her footsteps. He still doesn't open his eyes when he feels her touch, so she grabs his shoulder and shakes him back and forth. He reacts, but it's his mouth he opens, not his eyes. He knows she's there, he says. He would look at her, but he can't. Mr. Todd wouldn't want him to lift his eyelids. He's not supposed to look in the tonsorial parlor. Not ever. 

(It's Tuesday, and she's waking up. She can smell the cotton of her sheets. They feel funny against her nose, but she can't sleep unless she's completely covered. She's tried it before, and she's always gotten nightmares. Throwing the covers off of her body, she walks to the window and opens it. The man from yesterday is outside again, limping still. She frowns. Her handiwork is visible even from a distance. She'd stitched the sides of the gash together just like she'd seen in her father's books. Shouldn't that have fixed it? There's something funny about the whole scene. The thread looks different than it did the day before, and his gait is different, and his face is drawn up into a pained expression she's never seen. She squints, but she can't make out any more details.)


	3. twist

It's Saturday. She walks in expecting things to be worse, and she's right. She almost wishes she were wrong. She almost wants to apologize for getting angry with him when he wouldn't eat. She almost wants to stoop down beside his head and ask him softly if she hurt his neck the day before. The second almost is weaker, and she gives in. She has to kneel down to be level with the cot on which he's been lying for too long. Every morning when she comes to check on him he's in the same position-- legs straight, arms across the chest, on his back, looking like a corpse. She suspects he hasn't moved for a long time, but she can't remember how long it's been since she's seen him sitting up. That's the scariest part, but being this close to the smooth skin of his cheek and the soft curl of his hair tucked behind his small ear isn't much better. She fights her natural inclination to be as far away from him as possible and leans toward him. Is he alright? Has she hurt him recently? No, she hasn't. Not recently.

(It's Wednesday and she's on the fence again, but the man doesn't walk by today. It's possible he found a better place to walk. It's possible that he's cured and he's now on a ship to India, the first stop on his trip to tell the world of the miracle of the young girl who cured him. But it's not likely.) 


	4. touch

It's Sunday and the boy does not move when she enters the room, not even the slightest twitch. She wonders if he might be dead, but doubts that he is. She suspects that were he to die, she would know before she saw his corpse. She checks his pulse because it's protocol. His heart is beating fine, but hers is beating quickly. Strange, she thinks. Her purpose was not a sentimental one, but she's still unable to detach the young man lying on the cot from the Toby she's worked so closely with.

(It's Thursday when she sees them for the first time-- doctors. Doctors in big white labcoats with small brown clipboards and steely narrow eyes. Doctors with jobs in the city and jobs in the country and patients all over London. Real doctors. She's never seen a real doctor outside of books and photographs. Her father doesn't really count, as he hardly practices medicine anymore. Besides, he doesn't look like a doctor. These people look like doctors.

The doctors are stepping out of a carriage. She isn't nearly as impressed by the carriage as she is by the doctors. The carriage is stopped in front of their house, something that has never happened before, but what matters most to her are the two doctors walking up to her gate. What does it mean? Is someone sick? Despite her tendencies to avoid the romantic, she can't help but hope they're here because they have need of her services. After all, they're real doctors.)


	5. speak

She returns to him that afternoon. He does not speak. He does not open his eyes. He does not eat. But he whimpers when she takes his pulse and grips her hand with two of his white fingers.

(They want to speak to her. The doctors want to speak to her. Everything about her is stiff and formal. Her legs are stiff as she walks down the stairs. Her eyes are wide, her face set. She knows that if she does one thing wrong, it will be over. And she definitely does not want it to be over.

When at last she reaches the bottom of the stairs, the maid following behind her, she notices that the doctors are not like her father. They are doctors from the asylum. She can tell by the types of papers on their clipboards. She's done a lot of research on doctors and she knows that the papers are for the files on patients, and the diseases listed are mostly mental conditions so they must be from the asylum. She does not speak. She desperately wants to, but she knows that Father will speak on her behalf.

Oddly, the doctors say it is her they would like to speak to. They begin to ask her questions. How long has she lived here? Has she been to school? Does she do well in school? Does she have many friends?

The questions become more specific. Does she sometimes sit on the fence outside? Does she ever talk to people who pass by? Did she ever see a man with a gash in his leg? Did she offer to sew up the gash for him?

She answers them honestly. It has become clear to her that they do not want her to come to the asylum as a doctor. She notices that the shorter doctor has something in his hand that is not a clipboard. It is white and made of cloth and has many buckles. It is small like she is.

The shorter doctor sets down his clipboard and picks up the white cloth buckled thing with both hands. She is amazed. She has never seen a straightjacket before. She has seen pictures of them, but like with the doctors it is not the same. She reaches out and touches it softly, almost reverantly. Then she looks to Father, silently pleading with him. Can she go? Please?

It is a stupid plea. He has to let her go. She knows that she is, in a sense, being forcibly taken, even though she really wants to go. But her compliance seems to have gone over well. The doctors do not hold her arms when they take her to the carriage. They let her hold the jacket on her lap on her way to the asylum.)


	6. hear

That night, he speaks.

It doesn't surprise her as much as it should. She is too distracted. She has stayed with him since her afternoon visit, and during that time she has decided to tell him about her time at the asylum to entice him to tell her about the incident with Mr. Todd. When he speaks, she knows that it will work.

He says that he wants to tell her something, and she asks him what it is. Everything, he says. She tells him that this is a good idea. She says that she was once in a position just like his. She told the doctors everything, and after she told them everything they helped her, and after they helped her she became a doctor. She tells him that if he tells her everything, she will help him, and he will be able to do whatever he likes someday.

Someday, he repeats, and reaches for her fingers. He squeezes them when she does not pull away.

Then he speaks.

(She likes the asylum. It smells like bleach. It sounds like emptiness. It looks like a hospital. It feels like home.

She likes the pajamas they gave her. She likes her room, and she likes it even more because it is her own. She doesn't like the head doctor's son most of the time because he wanders around and whistles and sometimes peers into her room when he thinks she isn't looking. She does like him sometimes, like when he introduced himself and talked to her and noticed her freckles.

But most of all, she likes the doctors. She knows that one day she will be one of them. She tells them, and they shake their heads at her, but she knows they can be wrong. They were wrong about how strong the lock on her door was.) 


	7. epilogue

It's Monday. Every Monday since she has come to the asylum, the doctors have typed up reports on their patients to be filed in the asylum archives. She knows that today she will type two reports for Tobias.

One report will state that he has made no progress. It will be the first report in months that will not contain bad news. It will be the first time that the other doctors will read that Toby's mental state has not deteriorated any further since the last report.

She knows that this report is inaccurate. The other report states the truth: that Tobias has made a great deal of progress. She files the first report and hides the second under her bed, where it will remain until she can extract from him what it is he would like to do. Once she learns this, she will help him.

She knows that this is unethical. She also knows that she fought for the position she now has, and that no one helped her along the way. But she is strong, and she is cold, and Tobias is tender and weak and needs her help.

Knowing that she wants to help him makes her wonder if she really is as cold as she thinks she is, but she suspects Toby would have this affect on anyone. She knows that she will never test this hypothesis because she will never allow someone else to take over his diagnosis and care. No one, she decides, should take him his food unless they have been with him when he would not eat.


End file.
